Meat and Salt
by YupThatsMySock
Summary: G/M, a retelling of the fairy tale "Cap of Rushes." Following the death of his father, a three-day event is held for Prince Gregory's coronation. Molly, the disowned daughter of a nobleman, is employed in the palace kitchen. Love comes unexpectedly.


This is the first installment in a two-shot. I can't help it, I like Lestrade and Molly :3

Based off of one of my favorite fairy tales, "Cap of Rushes." This is still kind of a first draft and I'll go back and improve on it later.

* * *

**Meat and Salt: Part One**

Prince Gregory became (technically) King Gregory the night that his father died. For the most part, he kept his father's Council intact, but for his own comfort some of his own advisors were put in place. Lady Donovan was appointed Minister of Labor and Management, Lord Anderson was instated as Minister of Health and Human Services, Duke Holmes became the Attorney General, and Sir Watson quickly settled in to his role as the Minister of Defense and Military Affaris.

Chief Minister Holmes was promoted to Vice Minister. There was no Prime Minister in place, as such a role had been abolished and split between the King and the Vice Minister.

"Congratulations," was Duke Sherlock Holmes's first comment when he strode into Gregory's near-empty study. "And I suppose condolences are in order."

Gregory looked up in annoyance. Having known the younger Holmes for years, he was used to the Duke's consistent disregard for his social standing as compared to Gregory's.

"_Sher-_lock!" hissed a voice from the hallway. After a bow to his new king, Sir John Watson, Captain of the Guard and new Minister of Defense and Military Affairs, strode in after his best friend.

"Your Majesty, my greatest condolences," he said to Gregory, looking truly remorseful. "Long live the king."

"Mycroft dropped the stack of parchment on your desk yet?" asked Sherlock, ignoring John's wide-eyed glare. "He will soon enough. It will help take your mind off things. If you want to get a head start, I can tell you that some minor affairs that need to be delegated are orders of new swords for the armory, a new cook for the kitchen, and organizing your coronation."

"I'd really prefer it if you didn't bother me right now," Gregory muttered, sliding a hand over his face. "I'm not the prince anymore, Sherlock, I'm the king. My father just died and it's a lot to handle right now. Though I shouldn't really expect it, it would be nice to have some compassion from you."

"We're going, Your Majesty," cut in John, adding to Sherlock sternly, "we're _going_."

Gregory nodded, watching John tug Sherlock by his plumed sleeve out of the royal study.

Knowing Vice Chairman Holmes was busy planning the funeral and would be busy until the following day at the earliest, Gregory retreated to his mother's room to comfort her.

The queen was already clad in black for her year of mourning, but she seemed untroubled. "Your father's time was near," she said when Gregory inquired after her mood. "I am happy that he died painlessly and in his sleep."

Gregory nodded, his throat constricting. He'd never been particularly close to his father, but he had loved the man and admired him greatly.

"Has the Vice Chairman begun preparing the funeral?"

"Yes, Mother."

"You'd best be starting on your coronation soon, as well. Your official coronation, I should say." The queen adjusted her black nightdress and sat on her bed, patting the spot next to her. Gregory sat obediently. "I am aware of your desire to avoid a marriage of state. I know there are some instances where the two paired are lucky and fall in love, such as your father and I did. However, I am a firm believer that a king at his best is when he has his beloved ruling at his side, such as in the case with my parents, your father's parents, and your own."

Gregory pulled his lower lip through his teeth. "…I have no desire to marry."

"I know," his mother said. "However, your coronation will additionally be used as an opportunity for you to find a woman- or several- that you are interested in pursuing romantically."

Gregory sighed, nodding. It was just the way things had to be.

* * *

"We've been invited to the coronation of Prince Gregory," said Lady Margaret, nicknamed Molly by her elder sisters, to her family as they were eating breakfast. The former king had died only two days before and now his only child had been given the throne.

"Three days of banquets and dancing, with the coronation on the third day," she continued, tucking a honey-blond lock of hair behind her ear, brown eyes scanning the invitation. She looked up at her sisters. "Will we be going, then?"

Her eldest sister, Cordelia, nodded. "I don't see why not. That is, if Father feels well enough." The three daughters of Lord Ashton Hooper looked to their elderly father.

The man looked up from his plate and nodded.

"I get the green gown," said the middle Hooper sister, Florence, before either of her sisters could, causing the two to groan and glare.

"I get the red one, then," cut in Molly quickly. "I want the one with the blue sash, too."

Cordelia turned up her nose. "Take them," she said. "_I _want the yellow one."

Molly looked very little like her sisters, taking far more after her soft-featured father- a heart-shaped face, wide brown eyes, narrow lips and a snub nose- where her sisters took more after their mother, all sloping angles and green eyes and black hair. Molly was the youngest, being three years younger than Cordelia and one younger than Florence, and the girls had always gotten along well.

Molly, mild-mannered and sincere, had always served as a cushion to her sisters' sharp edges: their sharp tongues, their sharp wits, their sharp personalities. That wasn't to say that Molly wasn't fair intelligent, for she was quite bright, and neither was she dull. She had always been her father's favorite, and her sisters never begrudged her of this spot in his heart, for they'd never placed much importance on this spot, always preferring the love of their late mother.

They would soon observe this importance, though.

* * *

Cordelia was the first to be asked.

Lord Ashton was ready to retire his position as lord of his small fief and give control to one of his daughters. Which one, though, he had no clue. He loved them all dearly, and respected them for their differences. All three would be excellent choices to run his land.

So he asked them a question.

"How much do you love me?"

Cordelia, who was embroidering at the time her father asked this, immediately sensed a test. She was as keen as a blade, differing from the much less intellectual Florence and the slightly-naive Molly. _What's he asking this for? _she wondered. She pondered it for a brief moment, connecting her father's age to a desire to give the fief to one of the daughters, but failing to decide which.

Cordelia did want control of the fief, but did not care if one of her sisters had control instead of her. _Better safe than sorry, though, _she thought ruefully, knowing her father's mercurial countenance and fearing that if she did not answer grandly, then he would take offense.

"More than all the gold in the kingdom," she told him.

Florence was asked next.

Without hesitation, the twenty-three year old stated, "More than all the jewels in the world," hardly thinking about her answer and wanting only to satisfy her father.

Molly was asked last.

As Lord Ashton approached his youngest daughter, he felt a growing excitement. His youngest was a scholar, a reader of books- always very creative. He felt that, out of the three daughters, she truly loved him the most and would give him the best answer.

"How much do you love me, Molly dear?" he asked his youngest daughter, who was sitting in the windowsill with a book in hand.

Molly looked up at him with her fallow brown eyes. After a moment's thought, she answered simply, "As much as meat loves seasoning."

Her father stood stock still, taken aback by such a dull answer. "…Say it again?"

Molly looked up from her book, oblivious to his distress. "…As much as meat loves seasoning?"

So he _had _heard her correctly. His heart pounded. The daughter he most wanted to inherit his fief had given him the most disappointing answer he could imagine. _Does she not love me as her sisters do? They listed valuables, she tells me…meat and seasoning?_

Suddenly overtaken by grief and anger, he said impulsively, "Get out."

Molly stood, seeming alarmed. "I'm sorry, Father. Is everything all right?"

"I want you to leave! Get out of this house. Out of my land!"

Cordelia, who was walking through the halls, paused in front of the doorway, seeming puzzled. "What's going on? Molly?"

Molly walked quickly to her sister's side. "Father said I must leave."

Cordelia's eyebrows furrowed. "Father, what is the meaning of this?"

"Most loved, loves least!" said Lord Ashton accusingly, pointing a finger at Molly, who shrank backwards towards her elder sister. "You will go. I do not wish to see you again."

Molly let out a surprised gasp and Cordelia quickly wrapped an arm around her shoulder. "Molly, dear," she said softly, eyes not leaving their livid father, "he's just having a little spat; go to your room and wait for him to calm down-"

"NO!" Lord Ashton yelled, causing both girls to jump. "She will go, and that is my order as your lord and father!"

Cordelia and Molly stared at him. Quietly, Cordelia murmured, "Go pack your things."

"B-But-!"

"Do as I say. Leave here and go to the city. Florence and I will come find you during the coronation. It's only next week, no?"

"Cordelia-"

"No protesting. Go pack, _now._ I promise we will find you."

* * *

Molly left Hooper fief with enough money to last her for a few weeks and a few gowns, and headed towards the capital.

It was on her way that she stopped for a drink at a river. She peered down at her reflection in the moving water.

A muddled Molly stared back and not for the first time, she wished for her sisters' striking good looks. Molly was the only one who had not been approached yet by suitors, something that would not have been so discouraging had her sisters not been approached by many.

"When I'm in the capital, I can't be Lady Margaret Hooper," she murmured, knowing that if her father denounced her publicly it would only mean disaster. She'd have to throw that name to the river.

"Molly," she said. "Just Molly."

Her eye caught some tall grass. Crawling towards it, she felt it in between her fingers. Sturdy but flexible, unassuming but strong.

Rushes, she realized. She'd seen her mother weaving these plants before when she was a child, making little capes for her and her sisters when they went on picnics.

It took a few hours and several attempts, but Molly was able to craft a clumsy cape and a funny-looking cap, almost like a crown. It was with this that she started towards the city, the rushes hiding her finery beneath its stems.

* * *

"Your hands are too soft. You can't be a cook."

Molly drew her hands back into her cape. It was raining, and she stood near a back entrance of the palace which led to the kitchen. A poster declaring that help was wanted in the palace kitchens was tucked into her sleeve. "I know how to cook, but I can work if you want that more."

The palace cook, despite being a gentle-looking old woman, gave Molly a stern stare. "You don't look as if you've worked a day in your life. Where are you from, young lady?"

"Mrs. Hudson!" called a voice from inside the kitchen. "Soup's boiling!"

Mrs. Hudson wavered, looking from Molly to the kitchen. Finally, she said, "No one else has applied and we've been short on staff for two weeks now. Come inside."

Molly followed her inside, staying close to her new employer as she wove through the crowds of workers. "What's your name, girl?"

Molly hesitated. "Cap of Rushes."

Mrs. Hudson threw a look over her shoulder, as if wondering if she should have rethought this hasty hire. "….All right. You're going to be put over at the chopping board, dear, that's where we usually keep newcomers."

So Molly chopped.

* * *

Molly stayed quiet for the most part during her first few days at the palace. After Mrs. Hudson found out that Molly had no place she was staying at, she told her she was welcome to have a small corner closet that they had turned into a resting place should there be people doing overnight shifts, which was rare. Molly accepted gratefully, knowing this was better than staying at some inn that she wasn't comfortable with.

Mrs. Hudson had become head cook after the new King had grown too old for a caretaker. "Thirteen years old, he was," she said affectionately as she dumped the carrots Molly had been chopping into a pan. "Such a handsome young boy, and so smart and polite."

Molly had seen King Gregory when he was still a prince. It had been a few years before, during a banquet for his twenty-fifth birthday. Molly had been seventeen and had little interest in him, preferring to spend time with her sisters and flirt with all the young noblemen. She had never found Prince Gregory to be particularly handsome, though her sisters had. Now that he was older and not so spotty and sullen-looking, she could see where his appeal lay.

Mrs. Hudson loved telling stories, Molly soon found out. She could pass hours listening to the head cook rattle off all her memories of the civil war- which had happened at least a decade before Molly had been born- and her family, to name a few things. A few young men and women joined in with Molly, listening, even if they'd heard the stories before. They didn't mind that Molly only talked a little bit about herself and that she preferred to listen instead; in fact, they liked her better for it, because she never judged or tried to talk over them.

"Tell us about yourself, Cap," they'd say affectionately when they tired themselves out, and Molly would tell them a little here and there- perhaps that she liked a certain type of flower, or that she was scared of dogs. Never anything that could clue them to her identity.

* * *

The first day of the coronation event dawned bright and clear and pleasantly warm. Gregory was sitting on his balcony, looking out on the city and seeing all the noble families from the realm and neighboring kingdoms pouring into the palace gates in their carriages. They would all be housed in the palace unless they chose to stay somewhere else. There would be three days of dancing, games, and feasting, and on the third day at sundown, Gregory would officially be made king in the eyes of the law.

Hearing his door open and knowing it could be none but his mother, he asked, "Am I ready for this?"

"If you weren't asking that, I'd be concerned. It's a huge job. You'll have help, I promise," she told him, laying a hand on his shoulder. "Mycroft is very capable and will take excellent care of you."

He touched her hand. Her skin was right at that point of softness between youthfulness and age, right before the skin became to delicate and wrinkled but had lost the elasticity of her younger years.

Looking back into his mother's brown eyes and watching her smile at him, her face trusting, his resolve hardened. "Let it begin, then."

* * *

Thank you all for reading the first installment. As always, feedback is appreciated. (And for those who read my other Sherlock story, "Tea Leaves": don't worry, I promise Tea Leaves will update soon.)


End file.
